


peanut butter

by curiositykilled



Series: tumblr prompts [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Card Games, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/pseuds/curiositykilled
Summary: “Hey,” Shiro said, pausing at the door, “maybe don’t hole up in here all day?”Ulaz didn’t quite wilt, but it was a near thing. His room was his refuge here, among all these near-strangers. Without Shiro, he had no guide for navigating the complexities of the paladins. Coran was easier, by virtue of both his age and military experience. The paladins, however, were as baffling to Ulaz as a nevarick asteroid raider.“I will do my best,” he promised, knowing full well he would not.By Shiro’s expression, he knew it, too. He hesitated as if to say something more, but he exhaled and his shoulders slumped instead.“Have a good day,” was all he said as he left.





	peanut butter

                  “It should only take a few vargas,” Shiro said.

                  He kissed the top of Ulaz’s head, and Ulaz turned toward him for a real kiss. Shiro smiled, an expression that still sometimes caught Ulaz off-guard, and leaned over to comply. Their noses touched briefly, just a small nuzzle, before Shiro straightened and pulled away. Ulaz stopped himself from follow after, but only reluctantly.

                  They had both gotten to bed late – Ulaz because he was sending an update to Kolivan, and Shiro, even later, because he was with Keith. Now, with Shiro already dressed and ready to join the princess in a meeting with their hosts on forming an interplanetary alliance, there wasn’t time even for Ulaz to ask what was troubling the red paladin. By tonight, it would be too late; they lived condensed lives, where nearly every hour held enough moments of note to require debriefing. There was simply too much in every day.

                  “Hey,” Shiro said, pausing at the door, “maybe don’t hole up in here all day?”

                  Ulaz didn’t quite wilt, but it was a near thing. His room was his refuge here, among all these near-strangers. Without Shiro, he had no guide for navigating the complexities of the paladins. Coran was easier, by virtue of both his age and military experience. The paladins, however, were as baffling to Ulaz as a nevarick asteroid raider.

                  “I will do my best,” he promised, knowing full well he would not.

                  By Shiro’s expression, he knew it, too. He hesitated as if to say something more, but he exhaled and his shoulders slumped instead.

                  “Have a good day,” was all he said as he left.

                  Ulaz’s gaze lingered on the door after it closed he grudgingly pulled it away. The room settled into a comfortable quiet, the only noises the susurrus of the castle’s constant hum and his own steady breaths. He turned back to his work detailing the reach of Voltron’s new influence and what ramifications it had for the Blade. He lost time that way, engrossed in his work.

                  A rap sounded at the door. Ulaz jerked straight, tensing in surprise. He froze with his ears swiveled towards the door. He waited. The rap sounded again.

                  He stood and walked cautiously to the door. Logically, it could only be one of the paladins summoning him, but that didn’t exactly help his trepidation. He opened the door.

                  Keith waited outside, arms crossed and gaze turned away down the hall. He started a little, turning sharply towards Ulaz, as if he hadn’t really expected Ulaz to answer the door.

                  “Keith,” Ulaz said. “Is something wrong? Is someone injured?”

                  He couldn’t imagine another reason for any of the paladins to come to him, much less Keith.

                  “What? No,” Keith said.

                  There was a beat of silence where Keith stared at him with a frown and Ulaz stared back in confusion.

                  “We’re playing card games,” Keith explained finally. “If you want to join.”

                  Ulaz paused. The translator had stuttered over the many interpretations of that phrase, providing only the vague translation of ‘tabletop games.’ That seemed far too familiar for the paladins, so he assumed that it must be an error of the translator and that it was some new training program instead.

                  It was the only option that made sense for them to invite him to join. While Keith had been quick to defend Ulaz when he and Shiro were returned several spicolian movements ago, Ulaz was well aware that that was due to his unshakeable loyalty to Shiro and not any fondness towards Ulaz himself. Since then, Keith had maintained a cool neutrality towards Ulaz that verged on dislike. While Pidge and Hunk had vocally expressed their distrust of Ulaz, Keith had more than made it clear through his body language.

                  “You don’t have to,” Keith said now. “We’re not going to force you.”

                  The idea was briefly laughable and, if questioned later, Ulaz would blame that moment for his capitulation.

                  “I’ll join you,” he said.

                  From Keith’s raised eyebrows, Ulaz wasn’t the only one of them surprised by his answer. There was a stilted beat where neither of them moved.

                  “Okay,” Keith finally said. “We’re playing in the lounge.”

                  “Alright,” Ulaz replied.

                  Keith hesitated a moment longer before starting jerkily down the hall. His strides smoothed out as he walked, but the tension in his shoulders didn’t ease. Ulaz’s ears pressed back against the sides of his skull, guilt at Keith’s discomfort making his stomach tighten uncomfortably.

                  He knew how much Keith mattered to Shiro; the younger paladin was dearer still to Shiro than even Ulaz, and Ulaz knew well the depth of love that implied. He longed to strengthen their relationship somehow, but the way of it was murky to him.

                  “If it causes you discomfort, I can refrain from joining in your games,” he offered.

                  He winced internally at his own words. Formality was his own defense mechanism, he knew, but it didn’t help how awkward he had to seem to the paladins. Around Shiro, it had crumbled away in the year they spent lost together. Around the others, though, it remained stubbornly intact.

                  Keith flinched at the offer. He glanced furtively toward Ulaz without moving his head and then turned his gaze stiffly to the front.

                  “It’s fine.”

                  The silence returned, even more stilted this time.

                  They reached the lounge after a far longer walk than Ulaz would have preferred, even though he knew it was exactly the same distance as always. The doors slid open to reveal chaos.

                  Pillows had been summoned from some corner of the castle-ship – Ulaz dared not ask too many questions when Hunk went exploring – and their grey blankets had been pulled from their beds. Lance had his pulled over his head like a hood as he spoke animatedly to Hunk, and Pidge had draped hers about her shoulders like an oversized cape. The others were crumpled about the assembled pillows.

                  The paladins looked up as the doors opened, their conversation coming to an abrupt halt. Lance’s mouth was still open in speech as he turned to the door, and Pidge didn’t look up, her shoulders tensed.

                  “Hi,” Hunk said.

                  Had there been any warmth in his tone, Ulaz would have assumed it was directed toward Keith. There was none.

                  “Hello,” Ulaz said. “You are doing a training exercise?”

                  Lance closed his mouth and turned to Keith with a peculiar expression. Pidge spoke before he could.

                  “Yes,” she said. “It’s a training exercise.”

                  “Bonding,” Lance added with a grin, “to improve our connection when we form Voltron.”

                  Ulaz nodded and kept his expression carefully neutral. This was as much a training exercise as the time he and Thace snuck off the base to watch auroras on Larisen. Their blankets were enough of a giveaway without their poorly hidden amusement.

                  But.

                  But if they were inviting him to join them in their game – when they had no official responsibility to do so – well, he could play along.

                  “What is the exercise?” he asked as he took a seat.

                  The pillow was softer than he expected, and he sank into it as if sinking into a mound of moss.

                  “It’s called peanut butter,” Lance said.

                  “It’s called,” Pidge corrected, “bullshit.”

                  She declared it with a kind of exaggerated gravity that only she could manage, and Keith huffed out a breath of laughter as he sat down next to her. Hunk and Lance took their own seats so that they formed a rough circle with Ulaz opposite Keith and between Pidge and Lance. Pidge held a stack of slick white cards, and once they’d all sat down, she began passing them out, one at a time, until the stack was divided between the five of them. Ulaz and Lance each ended up with one extra card, and Lance screwed up his face in annoyance.

                  “Pidge,” he whined, “that’s not fair.”

                  Hunk patted his thigh sympathetically, if a bit absently.

                  “It’s okay, Lance,” he said. “We know you’re full of bullshit.”

                  Lance gaped in affront, and the others sniggered. The translator struggled with this phrase, too, and Ulaz found himself mildly concerned for Lance’s digestive system. That just couldn’t be healthy.

                  “Okay,” Keith said. “Who has the ace of spades?”

                  Before he’d finished speaking, Lance smacked down a card into the middle of their circle.

                  “The Death Card,” he declared, voice low in his throat.

                  Hunk shook his head, but there was a fond smile on his lips as he pulled out three cards.

                  “Three twos,” he said, laying them on top of Lance’s in the middle.

                  Pidge squinted at him, suspicion in her narrowed eyes.

                  “BS,” she said.

                  Hunk smiled sweetly. “Be my guest.”

                  Pidge groaned as she scooped up the three cards and tucked them among the nine already in her hand. Lance grinned, more than a little smug.

                  “Hunk doesn’t lie,” he boasted.

                  Pidge rolled her eyes, and Keith shook his head but laid down two cards. No – three. Ulaz squinted. The third was tucked tight to the second, neatly hidden.

                  “Two threes,” he said.

                  Pidge eyed him as if she’d object, but, after glancing down at her cards, she subsided.

                  “One four,” she said, laying down a card.

                  “Peanut butter,” Keith said mildly.

                  Pidge groaned and punched him in the arm, hard, but the other two only made annoyed faces before turning expectantly to Ulaz. He looked down at the cards in his hand.

                  The translator had provided clear enough translations of the numbers they’d called, and reasonably, those numbers had to correlate with the symbols on the cards. It was all very straightforward, except that Ulaz couldn’t read the humans’ language and had no idea which corresponded to which. He guessed at random and laid down one card.

                  “One five,” he said.

                  Lance squinted at him suspiciously as he slowly drew out his own cards. Ulaz met his gaze, unblinking. Lance held his cards hovering over the pile. Finally, he relented and dropped his cards down on the others.

                  “BS,” Hunk said.

                  Lance turned to him, aghast.

                  “Sorry, babe,” Hunk said, “I’ve got all of them.”

                  He patted Lance on the shoulder and casually ignored Lance’s look of abject betrayal.

                  “Two sevens,” he said.

                  The game continued on with each of them calling ‘BS’ on the other – except Ulaz and Keith. The both of them seemed to be playing by the same strategy of simply flying under the radar, even though Ulaz still had no idea which symbol meant what and Keith had cheated almost every turn. They were down to the fewest cards of the five of them, with Keith holding four and Ulaz six. Keith laid down three.

                  “Two jacks,” he said.

                  Ulaz narrowed his eyes.

                  “Bullshit.”

                  The four startled. Keith blanched, looing at Ulaz, and Ulaz faltered, wondering if he’d said it wrong.

                  “How,” Pidge blurted. “I can never catch him. None of us can.”

                  Ulaz hesitated, flexing the cards in his hands.

                  “He always rubs the corners when he cheats,” he explained.

                  Pidge stared at him a moment before turning towards Keith. Keith’s expression had turned from surprise to a thoughtful frown as he scooped up the now-considerable pile of cards.

                  “I didn’t realize that,” he admitted.

                  “Now you’re never going to win again,” Lance said gleefully.

                  “Uh,” Hunk said, looking pointedly at the twenty-odd cards in Keith’s hands. “Yeah, I think we’re safe.”

                  Pidge turned to Ulaz with an exaggeratedly solemn look.

                  “I will avenge him,” she vowed. “Taken too young, lost from us in a tragic game of BS.”

                  “Quit telling people I’m dead,” Keith muttered, but he was grinning as he said it.

                  “Sometimes,” Pidge said, laying a hand over her sternum and looking slightly upwards, “I can still hear his voice.”

                  She was greeted with a chorus of groans.

                  “Okay, Vintage Memelord,” Lance said. “It’s your turn. Avenge your boo.”

                  Pidge grinned and laid down four cards.

                  “Four queens,” she said and turned to Ulaz.

                  “One thirteen,” he said with all the certainty he could muster. It wasn’t much.

                  He laid down his cards. There was silence. He focused on the cards in his hands and forced his ears not to flatten in discomfort. He was a spy for the most successful covert organization in imperial history. He had stood firm in the face of far greater adversity.

                  “One… _thirteen?_ ” Lance asked.

                  “Yes,” Ulaz confirmed staunchly.

                  “Okay,” Hunk said. “Well, that’s bullshit.”

                  Ulaz met his gaze, prepared to try to stare him into submission, but he’d already moved to pick up the cards. He flipped through them briskly.

                  “This is an eight,” Hunk said.

                  “Wait,” Pidge said. “Can you even read these?”

                  Ulaz relented, recognizing defeat. His shoulders slumped slightly, ears tilting down.

                  “No,” he admitted. “I am unfamiliar with the human language.”

                  “Human language,” Lance scoffed under his breath.

                  “What,” Hunk said. “You’ve been winning even though you’ve been guessing the whole ime?”

                  Ulaz nodded.

                  “The pattern was simple,” he said, “and the goal obvious enough.”

                  Pidge nodded, and Hunk lost some of the surprise from his expression. Lance and Keith seemed less understanding, but Ulaz couldn’t quite decipher their expressions.

                  “That’s kinda badass,” Lance remarked.

                  “I didn’t even think about that,” Keith admitted. “Sorry.”

                  Ulaz faltered, unsure of what to say. He could have asked for clarification, of course, but he was so clearly ‘other’ as was. He had no desire to draw any further attention to it than was already brought by being some three heads taller than even Hunk and a distinctly different color than their shades of brown.

                  “I did not wish to disrupt your game,” he said. “The invitation was unexpected but much appreciated.”

                  There was an awkward pause where none of them made eye contact with Ulaz. Finally, Lance spoke.

                  “We didn’t think you’d want to,” he said. “You always just hang out with Shiro.”

                  There was a quiet ‘yeah’ from Hunk and the other two nodded their agreement. Ulaz tightened his grip of the cards until they bowed under the force.

                  “I…do not wish to cause discomfort,” he said carefully. “I know I was allowed to remain here against your protests.”

                  “Aw, man,” Hunk said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That wasn’t – it’s not _you_ personally. It’s just-”

                  He gestured with one hand, looking to Lance a little desperately, but it was Keith who rescued him.

                  “Shiro means a lot – to all of us – and we thought he was dead – again,” he explained. “And then he showed up with you.”

                  “ _With_ you, with you,” Lance added meaningfully.

                  Ulaz didn’t need the translator for that one; Lance’s voice was steeped in innuendo. His ears pressed against his skull in embarrassment.

                  “I would never hurt Shiro,” he said and immediately regretted it.

                  The paladins’ faces had turned drawn, and Pidge chewed her bottom lip.

                  “You wouldn’t _want_ to, sure,” she said, “but you _have._ ”

                  “The thought isn’t always what counts,” Lance joked feebly.

                  It was endearing, in a way, to see how fiercely they cared for Shiro. It was a kindred love to his own, that willingness to protect and fight and even die for him. But it left one question nagging at him.

                  “Why invite me, then?” he asked.

                  Keith lifted and dropped his shoulders in a thoroughly human gesture.

                  “Shiro cares about you – and us,” he said. “It hurts him to see us disliking each other. So.”

                  He left the sentence unfinished, but Ulaz understood. He understood, too, now, why Shiro had been up late with Keith the night before.

                  “I would like to improve our relationship,” he said, “and I will strive to adjust my behavior to that end. Shiro’s happiness is paramount to mine, but his is, as you have said, contingent upon all of yours.”

                  Lance laughed a little, though it wasn’t his normal one. When Ulaz looked to him, he looked a little abashed.

                  “Uh I know we’ve got super geniuses everywhere, but you don’t have to talk so formal all the time,” he said. “I mean, we’re not that professional.”

                  “My apolo- I’m sorry,” Ulaz corrected himself. “The human tongue is quite different than Galra.”

                  Lance opened his mouth to speak, grinning lasciviciously, but Hunk clapped a firm hand on Lance’s thigh.

                  “Lance, no,” he said. “Okay, well, we can help with that. How about a movie?”

                  “Good idea,” Pidge said, flailing herself off her pillow to the tablet half-buried under blankets across the room.

                  Lance continued to sulk for a few minutes longer, but it couldn’t last in the face of the others’ enthusiasm. Soon enough, he was wrapped up into the heated debate over the relative merits of different ‘movies.’ Ulaz knew it was hopeless to try to understand and even more so to offer any input. He watched and listened and was of far more use when it came to rearranging the room.

                  The pillows were situated in a facsimile of a giant mattress and the blankets were thrown overtop. The cards were abandoned where they lay, scattered over the floor. They were shuffled into position until Ulaz lay on one end on the far side of Pidge.

                  She finished setting up the tablet and nestled in between Ulaz and Keith to snuggle into Keith’s side. Ulaz shifted over to make more room for her, but she reached over and pulled him closer by his upper arm. She didn’t move her gaze from the blue screen glowing before them, and he obeyed after a moment, a little baffled.  

                  The movie was what the others called ‘animated,’ which Ulaz assumed had to do with the exaggerated emotions of each character. Lance and Pidge burst into song each time the movie characters did, and after enough warbling and elbowing, they managed to coax the other two to sing as well.

                  “Come on, Ulaz,” Hunk laughed, “ _At night we name every star! We know where we are!”_

Ulaz hesitated before eventually relenting. It had been a long time since he really sang, years since he was last among the Blades, and his voice was rusty with disuse when he started. It came back to him a little more with each song, smoothing into his familiar, low tones. He tried to match the pitch with Hunk, who had the closest voice to his own, but the words came in Galra instead of the song’s original language.

                  As the main character escaped a glowing sea monster, Ulaz became aware of a tickling sensation on his upper arm. He looked down to find Pidge’s head resting against his arm. Her hand was still interlaced with Keith’s, but she’d slumped over, asleep against Ulaz. Keith looked over, meeting Ulaz’s gaze over her head, and offered a small, fond smile. Ulaz curved his mouth in a mirror of the expression.

                  The paladins were all asleep by the time the movie came to a close, and Ulaz watched in silence as the demon’s charred skin crackled and fell away to reveal lush green. His ears perked up as the door behind him hushed open, but the familiar scent that followed set his shoulders at ease.

                  Shiro’s steps paused and then grew quiet as he approached. He stopped behind Ulaz and rested a warm hand on Ulaz’s neck. Ulaz tilted his head back to press into the touch, and Shiro folded down to sit beside him.

                  “Hey,” he greeted softly.

                  “Hello,” Ulaz replied.

                  Shiro smiled, closed-lip, and leaned into Ulaz’s side. He hummed along to the closing music of the movie, clearly familiar.

                  “Sorry it took so long,” he said once the screen had faded to black and shut off. “How was your quintent?”

                  Ulaz looked out to his right, over the sleeping paladins. He leaned into Shiro’s side.

                  “Good,” he said. “It was good.”

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in one of my favorite AUs so I may eventually write more in it and link it, but for now, I've got too many projects as-is.


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